## Facts

- Massachusetts life insurers historically used sex-based mortality tables; male mortality rates were generally higher, producing higher premiums for men than for women in ordinary life insurance.
- In 1988, the Commissioner of Insurance issued “unisex” life-insurance regulations, 211 C.M.R. §§ 35.00 et seq., effective September 1, 1988.
- The regulations barred insurers from using tables or other statistics that classify Massachusetts residents by sex (among other listed traits) for underwriting or rating decisions.
- The regulations also prohibited treating a covered person differently, on the basis of sex, regarding availability, terms, conditions, rates, benefits, or requirements.
- Individual consumers and two life-insurance companies challenged the regulations, arguing the Commissioner lacked statutory authority and that the regulations conflicted with statutes that expressly permit sex-based risk classifications.
- The Superior Court upheld the regulations on summary judgment, reasoning the Commissioner could draw authority from the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights and that the rules lacked discriminatory purpose.
- The Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) granted direct appellate review.

## Issues

1. Whether the Commissioner of Insurance had statutory authority to prohibit sex-based underwriting and rating for life insurance by regulation.
2. Whether the unisex regulations were invalid because they conflicted with Massachusetts statutes that expressly permit sex-based risk classification in insurance.
3. Whether the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights can serve as an independent source of administrative rulemaking power to displace contrary statutes.
4. Whether constitutional and arbitrariness challenges needed to be resolved if the regulations were ultra vires.

## Decision

- The SJC reversed the judgment upholding the regulations and invalidated the unisex regulations.
- The court held the Commissioner was not authorized to promulgate the regulations because they directly conflicted with statutes permitting the challenged risk classification.
- The court rejected the view that constitutional equality provisions supply independent administrative authority to override explicit legislative policy choices.
- Because the case was resolved on statutory authority and conflict grounds, the court did not decide the broader constitutional or policy questions.

## Legal Principles

- An administrative agency may not adopt regulations that conflict with statutes or exceed authority delegated by the Legislature.
- Where the Legislature has expressly permitted particular underwriting or rating classifications, an agency cannot prohibit them by regulation absent statutory change.
- Constitutional provisions do not operate as a free-standing grant of rulemaking power allowing an agency to nullify or contradict enacted statutes.
- Courts generally avoid deciding constitutional questions when a case can be resolved on non-constitutional grounds.

## Conclusion

The SJC struck down Massachusetts’s unisex life-insurance regulations because the Commissioner lacked delegated authority to ban sex-based underwriting in direct contradiction of statutes that allowed such actuarial classifications.


Telles v. Comm'r of Ins., 410 Mass. 560, 574 N.E.2d 359 (1991)